New York City's Whitney Museum of American Art Sells Buildings to Fund Move

The mixed-media installation "While enhancing a Diminishing Deep Down Thirst, the Juice Broke Loose (the Birth of a Soda Shop), 2008" by Phoebe Washburn is shown at the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum in New York on March 4, 2008. AP Photo/Sara Rose.

NEW YORK, NY (AP).-The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City has sold eight buildings near its Madison Avenue locale, paving the way for construction of a new facility across town.

The sale price was not disclosed. But the Whitney told The New York Times on Thursday the funds would go toward its endowment and construction of the new Renzo Piano-designed museum near the elevated High Line park. The new facility in the city's meatpacking district is expected to be completed in 2015.

Museum Director Adam Weinberg says with the sale it has raised $475 million of its $680 million goal.

The fate of the Marcel Breuer-designed museum on Madison Avenue is uncertain.